Alek Parker's Blog » Surf News

NEW VIDEO PROJECT!!!

Alek Parker — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 19:04:45 +0000

I am currently down in Puerto Rico shooting for a new project I am working on with Carmen Vicari… I’ve had this idea for a while now, but it took some time for everything to line up and start the production… In a nutshell, my goal is to make a video web series documenting the life of a cold front as it brings harsh weather and epic surf from West to East across the country and Caribbean… Pacific to the Atlantic and down to the Caribbean, we want to give a very indepth look at these weather systems and the local surfers of the locations that these storms effect the most… With the giant swells that have been rocking the coast of California and Baja to the snow covered barrels of the Northeast and down to the beautifuly pristine Northwest swells of the Caribbean, this project will be as action-packed as it is interesting…

I’m very excited that everything is coming together, and I am able to start shooting… Carmen is a very talented videographer and as this trip continues I have learned that we work very well together and are equally excited for the outcome of the finished product… We have a long road ahead of us, but with every trip planned to be more diverse than the next, we shouldn’t have any dull moments…

This trip down here to Puerto Rico has been better then we could have asked for… With Brian Toth getting one of the biggest barrels of his life at home to the talent of Gabe Kling, Asher Nolan, and Peter Mendia scoring one of the best swells of the year, we are psyched on the quality of footage we have been so fortunate to collect…

Not sure when we are returning to Florida due to another swell forecasted here for the weekend, but nonetheless, we are anxious and excited to continue on to the next leg of our journey…

I will be posting project updates and behind-the-scenes videos up here on my blog throughout the next few months, so keep checking back for a quick glance into our adventures!!!

Here are a few selects from the feature on Surfline from this past weekend, here in Puerto Rico…

Click this link for all the pics from the photo feature on SURFLINE.COM

HIGH SEAS BAHAMIAN ADVENTURE

Alek Parker — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 01:45:06 +0000

The Bahamas are one of my favorite places in the world. Surf+Fishing+Warm sunshine = Exactly where I want to be… So when Mikey DeTemple asked if I would go on a trip to a remote island in the South Bahamas to shoot for his new movie, I jumped at the opportunity… Nick LaVecchia Came along to shoot photos for Surfers Journal. Nick is a big part in a extremely kickass website called GetInTheVan.com, They have tons of great content of Northeast surfers shredding all over the world. Our bahamas trip is a multiple part photo feature on the website documenting each day of our trip. Below I took a few screen shots off their site to share on here, but please continue on to their site to see the full feature titled Bahamian Jewel…

SPECTACULAR ADVENTURES: GALAPAGOS SECTION ON TWS

Alek Parker — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 03:45:20 +0000

The Galapagos section from the Spectacular Adventures DVD is posted on Transworld Surf.com… Here are the words that accompanied the video in their post…

As we all know, Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species laid the foundation for the theory of evolution based on natural selection. Many of his cited findings are based on an exploration to the Galapagos Islands, or their official name of Archipiélago de Colón, aboard the famousBeagle. Darwin noted many differences in the same species (most notably finches) amongst the different islands within the island chain.

These days the Galapagos are a World Heritage Site and a Biosphere Reserve for their rare species, diverse landscapes, and natural beauty. And they’ve also got some quality surf.

The Spectacular Adventures! crew headed there a while back to include some footage in their newly released movie, Super Spectacular Adventures! Check out the Galapagos section above with ripping from the likes of Cory Lopez, Asher Nolan, Alek Parker, and Zander Morton, as well as the crew getting familiar with the indigenous species of the famous island chain.

To pick up a copy of the DVD, head here.

And for more from the Spectacular crew, head to superspectacularadventures.com.

Spectacular Adventures! Galapagos from Spectad on Vimeo.

GO PRO PANAMA SPECTACULAR!!!

Alek Parker — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 04:19:01 +0000

Back in May of this year, we put together the last trip for the Spectacular Adventures DVD… We called it the “Super Trip” due to the fact there were 12 surfers all on one boat trip… Go Pro Cameras were stoked on the trip so they sent us 16 Go Pro Hero Cameras to use for the trip… This is the edit I put together using only the footage from all the Go Pro Hero Cameras…

Thanks Go Pro for Hooking it up!!!

Go Pro! Panama from Spectad on Vimeo.

SPECTACULAR ADVENTURES!!! EAST COAST TOUR!!! 2009

Alek Parker — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 03:06:18 +0000

August was the month of Spectacular Adventures or should I say “Spectacular Disasters”… Which is what we quickly dubbed our East Coast movie premiere tour. Every one of our 12 stops in the month of August went off 100 times better then we ever imagined leaving us with the only option but to call our video updates “Spectacular Disasters”… I orchestrated a East Coast Movie tour back in 2007 for “The Best Laid Plans” but this tour was on a level of its own… O’neill was AWESOME with letting us use their RV as well as covering the expenses for fuel and the driver (my best buddy Duddy) which was a HUGE!!! contribution that made the whole tour possible…

All we had to do is plan 12 stops in a month, then get on the bus and make them happen… Lets just say nothing is ever as easy as it looks on paper and for Zander Morton, Jerry Ricciotti and I those were the truest words ever spoke…

Florida was incredible starting on the Gulf Coast with 3 stops that Dustin Howard of BARFLEYES.COM hosted before he jumped in the O’neill RV to drive across the state for our next stop in Jupiter… We worked our way up the coast to Melbourne for a premiere at Da Kine Diegos then after St. Augustine and Jax Beach we partied With Gabe Kling for his B Day before leaving Florida for Savanah Georgia… Im going to say that Georgia was by far my favorite stop… Tybee Island is one of the coolest little beach towns I have been to and the bar HUC-A-POOS where we did the premiere is very easily within mine and everybodies top 5 bars in the world… FOR REAL… The people of Tybee were so stoked we were there and they confirmed that we were the first surf movie to come through Tybee EVER and we were treated no differently… Even the Mayor came out to introduce the movie along with a front page article in the news paper and a video piece on FOX News on why we were there and what we were doing… It was CRAZY and will from now on forever be a annual stop for us with future tours.

Hurricane Bill started showing signs of surf when we were there which was amazing because that meant a number of things. One we were able to shred Tybee Island which was very unexpected, Two it was our first major storm of the 2009 Hurricane season and Three it was time to start filming the first episode of The Hunt 2009… The next 2 stops and our travel plans were completely dictated by hurricane Bill with trying to execute our tour stops while not missing any surf from Bill. Those 3 days were F#@%$ CRAZY!!! and went like this…

Drive Georgia to Folly Beach S.C. to shred day 2 of Bill surf, Spectacular party in Charleston S.C. that night at 11pm which had us leaving at 1am to drive 5 hours to Wrightsville Beach N.C for a early morning Bill Surf with no sleep. Still running on no sleep we then drive that night to the OBX which gets us in around 4 am so we can wake up at 6am to shred day 4 (the last and final day of Bill surf) before leaving mid day to drive to Atlantic Beach N.C. (about 4 hours away) for a Spectacular party that night… WOW just writing that makes me feel crazy all over again. And Dustin Howard is SUPER MAN or just SUPER RV DRIVER…

After that crazy Bill fiasco the next 2 Parties were spread out and easy. First came the OBX party at the Brew Station before heading to VB for the ECSC and our last and final stop of the tour… we had a couple days to relax and regroup till Tropical Storm Danny showed face the day of our Party in VB… Ben Bourgeois and I woke up at 5am slammed 5 hour energies and powered the 3 hour drive to score by far the best surf of the 2009 Hurricane Season and the second installment to The Hunt 2009 on Surfline.com. We surfed till the sun was setting jumped in the car wet and sandy and hauled ass back to VB but not before getting a 18 mph over speeding ticket… Got back showered and was at the last Spectacular Adventures Premiere with about 5 minutes to spare…

All in all the whole tour was incredible and it wouldn’t have ever happened without the help of everyone in our crew… Dustin Howard (Bus Driver, Documenter, Professional Drinker and Jump Kicker), Chris Splendore (the ultimate right hand man to all), Jerry Ricciotti (Spectacular GURU), Zander Morton (Tour Planner, Media updater, writer, and one hot shredder), Ben Bourgeois (Red hot shredder, Pro Party Guy, and the spirit keeper) and last but not least Me (Tour Planner and all around gitter done)…

Thanks to everyone that helped us plan the tour stops and each and every one of you that came out to join in the festivities and support one of the best East Coast surf videos of all time. YEP I SAID IT…

Spectacular Disaster Gulf Wrapup from Spectad on Vimeo.

Spectacular Disaster: Jupiter from Spectad on Vimeo.

St. Augustine Disaster from Spectad on Vimeo.

Gabe’s Birthday Disaster! from Spectad on Vimeo.

Kick Jump Disaster! from Spectad on Vimeo.

Bad Jacksonville Doggy from Spectad on Vimeo.

HEAD PHONES A PEN AND A HARDDRIVE…

Alek Parker — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:07:49 +0000

HEAD PHONES A PEN AND A HARDDRIVE… My first thought when deciding to finally update my website after a 3 month hiatus… “It’s so amazing how fast time goes by”.

I finally got this website up and running and of course, I think I’m just going to flood the pages with constant, practically streaming content of all my everyday misadventures… Well, I was slow to start this process due to the continual learning curves of updating, then when it felt like I was getting comfortable with the updating process I realized that my biggest battle would be the frequency of my updates… Which leaves us right here, November 20th, with the motivation to actually train myself in this whole “blogging world”.

So let’s just start with a little timeline to sum up the last 3 months… Editing Spectacular Adventures DVD, Sweet Water Pro/World Premiere of Spectacular Adventure, California, Spectacular Adventures East Coast Tour, The Hunt 2009, Hurricane Bill, Tropical Storm Danny, Surfline, Belmar Pro, OBX Pro, Alek and Benny Do North Carolina, The Hunt DVD Concept, The Hunt Winter Fronts (test trip), Caribbean, Home, Shredding Home, Board Paint, Lobster Dive, Gator Hunting and most recent would be Tropical Storm Ida with a trip to New York…

That whole “Timeline” has left me with TONS of awesome adventures to post… Now it’s time to overcome my “blogging block” and post away… Throughout this next month I will be posting some current but mostly past tense stories to try and get back up to date with the present… I’m adding a few pics from some of the adventures I’ve listed above as a lil preview into the coming updates.

THANK YA

SPECTACULAR SHOT GUN HEAT ENTRY!!!

Alek Parker — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 02:29:45 +0000

BEST ENTRY INTO A CONTEST OF MY LIFE… THANKS SWEET WATER PRO!!! CHECK OUT THE BEER TOSS…

[Show as slideshow]

[View with PicLens]

I LOST BUT I WON!!!

AIR SICKNESS!!!

Alek Parker — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 06:47:09 +0000

MATT PRUETT Defines surfings finer points and puts a end to every miss labeled aerial maneuver us surfers transformed from half pipes to waves… Matt put in his time and really did the research needed while giving credit to the foundation of aerial surfing, Skateboarding… Plus I have a sequence in here of a Backside Mute Grab that I am super stoked on… Check the Slow Mask face flying high… Click on the pic to the left for direct link to article…

EASTERNSURF.COM

WEEKEND AT BENNIE’S ON EASTERNSURF.COM

Alek Parker — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 04:20:41 +0000

EasternSurf.com has really stepped up the game in East Coast surf coverage… I have heard from many mouths how much everyone is loving their new site and it isn’t hard to see why… This is a photo feature from this past weekend in Wrightsville Beach N.C. Home of Benny Bourgeois during the Reef Sweet Water Pro and the Spectacular Adventures DVD WORLD PREMIERE… Check it out!!! there are some amazing pics from the lenses of the ESM staff photogs Mez and Gamma… Make sure you click on Benny when he pops up on the left side of the pic for an awesome quick video clip…

Click on the little pic up on the top left to get to the feature…

NEW AND IMPROVED SPECTACULAR ADVENTURES MOVIE TRAILER

Alek Parker — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 22:10:23 +0000

Spectacular Adventures! is the 2009 release of the past 12 months of shredding and good timing all stuffed into one DVD and digital download. Look for the movie to be coming out this August and check back here until then for updates and throwaway footage as we piece the project together!

Spectacular Adventures! Trailer from Spectad on Vimeo.

Featuring Ben Bourgeois, Asher Nolan, Cory Lopez, Gabe Kling, Alek Parker, Zander Morton, Brian Toth, Dylan Graves, Shea Lopez, Peter Mendia, Brendan Buckley, Michael Dunphy, Sam Hammer, Mike Gleason, and Alejandro Moreda